


they call that vision dichoptic

by sybilius



Category: True Detective
Genre: 1995 Era, Canon-Close, Character Study, Daemon lore, Detective Work, Emotional Intimacy, Gen, Interrogation, It's rust I guess what do you expect, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Past abuse implications, Pining, Rust's bullshit rambling, Sad Backstory, Self Knowledge, Underresolved Emotional Tension, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unusual psychological torture, daemon AU, of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: Marty Hart is used to being the odd man out in the precinct for his daemon’s form. But nothing,nothingcould prepare him for the daemon his partner walks in with.





	1. digitigrade

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear readers,
> 
> This is a very slight au to canon-- the only alteration is that I have brought in the daemons of Philip Pullman's _His Dark Materials_ trilogy. Daemons are animal companions that essentially represent the “inner voice” and animus/anima of a person. 
> 
> There's a bit more logistics on the details of how daemons work, but I will let the writing reveal that. You should be able to go into this AU knowing nothing about HDM or daemons, and bits of the lore will be revealed in the chapters. In the endnotes I will add explanations and clarification (though feel free to ask for more in comments). 
> 
> The existence of daemons, and character study through daemons has always interested me. Hart and Cohle both have an dimension to their daemons that struck me as one that would make a good story, especially given how they interact. 
> 
> Hopefully you like it. Comments and concrit are welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cats and dogs are digitigrates-- means they walk on their toes.

Being able to read someone’s daemon was part of the job. The police did it to suspects all the damn time, watching the way small rodents prowled around their weaselly other halves. Occasionally setting their daemons on them, to gnash their teeth and rough up the criminal types with a canine hunter’s fury.

Or in Marty’s case, feline.  

Yeah, there was a type for a criminal daemon, or so people said. Just like people said there was a type for a policeman’s daemon. Marty Hart knew that all too well, tried to stay away from that side of the business. Keep things friendly-like, and leave too much judgment at the door.

But what the  _ hell  _ was he supposed to do when his new partner walked in with a daemon like that?

You couldn’t even  _ see _ Rust Cohle’s daemon when he walked in to the station, dressed up in his tight-fitting slacks and sleeves rolled up to his wiry bones. Marty felt the hair raise on his neck, despite the soupy heat of the day. Was the guy  _ separated _ from his daemon? Marty had never met someone like that, Jesus Christ it was just unnatural. Karoniake retreats into his lap, baring her teeth slightly.

“Easy, Kare,” he murmurs, to himself more than anything. He buries his hand in her orange fur. By now the other men are starting to stare too, or their daemons are staring for them. Lot of sharp-raised ears and droopy black lips curled. The secretary points Marty’s place out, along with the clean, empty desk across from him.

No sign of dog, cat, or even lizard as the guy strides up, though he has a walk that would make someone get the fuck out of the way even without that.

“Rust Cohle,” he extends a hand, “Detective Hart?”

“You can call me Marty. Welcome to Louisiana, Rust,” he stands, hoping his smile isn’t too tight. He shakes Cohle’s hand quickly, then releases it. It’s warm and human at least, though his turned down gaze borders on….not soulless but something like the black sky of a moonless night. Kare prowls out from in behind him, squinting her green-yellow eyes at Rust, then at a fly buzzing in front of her vision. Its back is unusually jeweled. Kare cocks her head.

Oh Jesus fuck.

A fly. A fucking house fly for a daemon. Of all the fucking people to be partnered with. Cohle raises his eyebrows at Marty, and Marty realizes he’s been staring. He clears his throat, remembering himself.

“So uhm. You’re coming from Texas, right?”

“Right,” the fly has started to buzz around Cohle’s face, hovering about his left shoulder. Kare nips him in the leg to get him to stop staring. It’s not like the others aren’t too, by now.

Cohle doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t even have a cardboard box of belongings to start arranging on his desk. Just a thin briefcase from which he takes out a black book, a pencil, lays them out and sits down.

“So,” Cohle studies him, “You have some case files you’re lookin’ at?”

“Yeah. Uh. Domestic dispute. Husband claims he’s innocent, but there’s been more than a few noise complaints. No children, dead of night, smothered with a pillow.”

“They don’t sleep together?”

“Yeah, uh, that could be a motive, huh?” Marty shrugs part-ways to humor, ill at-ease, and Geraci lets out a chuckle from the other table. Cohle stays impassive.

His daemon settles on the desk, close to the ledger. It hasn’t said a damn thing to Kare, or Cohle as far as Marty can tell. Might not even be a lady daemon. Maybe that’s why it’s quiet. Cohle takes the case file when it’s offered to him. Kare hops up on the desk, which is a bit of a leap for her, and her paws skitter across some papers, knocking them to the floor.

“Oh, I’m sorry Marty,” Kare shakes her head, and Geraci laughs again, but it dies in his throat as Marty shoots him a glare. Geraci could be a real ass sometimes, tried to give Marty shit about having a cat rather than a dog from the first day. Well, there’s a reason Marty made detective, and he was still sorting the night calls.

He picks up the pages while Kare settles on the desk, studying the house fly. It hops about on the case file, rubbing its tiny hands together over the photograph.

“At least it’s a clear case, hmm?” Kare tries at conversation.

“She’s not very talkative,” Cohle writes something down in his book without looking up. A pause, “Sorry.”

“That’s no worries, so long as you can fucking talk,” Marty smiles again, and is pretty sure this one comes out genuine, because Cohle looks him in the eyes,  _ really _ looks him in the eyes for the first time since he’d walked in to the precinct. Marty feels like  _ he’s _ the bug under the microscope for a fraction of a second.

“Sure as hell can,” the casualness of the drawl is a little disconcerting, sends an involuntary shiver down Marty’s spine. Cohle doesn’t return the smile, but he doesn’t seem insulted either, “Can you tell me anything else about this man who was in contact with the wife? The one with the Kingfischer daemon.”

“Yeah. Can do.”

They chat back and forth about the case, and eventually Cohle goes to the back room to sift through evidence. Before Marty knows it, noon comes by, marked by the chirp of a red-winged blackbird and the leggy brunette who he belongs to. Lisa. Kare bounds out of her seat to say hello to Marius. They’ve been cozy-like ever since Lisa quipped that it was unusual to see a detective with a cat daemon.

But not as a jab, she was  _ flirting _ , Marty was pretty sure. Very sure when he’d danced with her at the bar and she’d dragged him home to  _ see if he was as frisky as he looked _ .

He licks his lips. His ring feels weighty on his finger and he and Kare had agreed  _ yes, we shouldn’t do that anymore, but was it that bad really? _ He catches an eyeful of his new partner and blinks through the film reel memories of Lisa’s perfect breasts. Cohle’s sharp cheekbones come into focus, and a flush comes to Marty’s cheeks. He shouldn't be this distracted at work, really.

“Right, uh, let’s go get lunch, there’s a burger joint a few blocks down you’re gonna love.”

Cohle just nods without looking up, finishing scrawling something down and closing his book. He doesn’t even leave it at the damn desk, and his only conversation in the afternoon heat is more observations about the Walkerton file.

The only thing Marty gets out of his order is that he likes fucking strawberry milkshakes, of all things. And with cigarettes, apparently, that’s the second one he’s lit since they started walking. Marty takes a slow bite of his burger. Kare nudges him with the back of her head. Time to try for conversation again.

“So, tell me about yourself.”

“You sure you want to know?”

“Yeah, uh. We're partners, right?” this guy was fucking  _ weird. _

“No, I'm serious, I'm giving you a choice here, Marty,” Cohle’s eyes follow something on the horizon that Marty can’t quite make out, “No need to keep up appearances with me here, not even professional ones.”

“Just answer the damn question, alright?”

“Wasn't a question,” Cohle sucks at the cigarette, “I used to live in Alaska. M’good at hunting, survival. I read a lot. I’m a detective. Is that enough?”

“Jesus, you’re a generous sonofabitch. What’s it like up there?”

“Too fucking cold.”

“Now that, I can believe,” Marty watches the fly buzz above his shoulder. It hasn’t landed since they left the station, zig-zagging up and down. Marty wonders if having a fly daemon meant something weird about brain size. Apparently it meant you couldn’t make normal fucking conversation.

“You were born and raised here, right? Nah, north of here?” Cohle looks him up and down.

“Yeah, what were you investigating me, or something?”

“Just an educated guess. Bit of the right accent,” he takes a hard drag of the cigarette, “And kids, right?”

“How did you--”

“There’s a picture on your desk, Marty.”

“Right,” he pauses, searching for the right words that seem kind enough to answer that dry shit with, “Well, I’m sure the wife will be wanting you for dinner sometime.”

Marty wasn’t sure  _ what _ Maggie and Leif would think of his new partner and his tiny, silent companion. One thing was for sure, though, Cohle nor his daemon were stupid. When they got back, he unraveled the Walkerton case for Marty, and damn if it wasn’t the most airtight breakdown Marty had heard in his entire life.

They brought in the man with the kingfisher daemon the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned in passing but this will come up again-- human and daemon must stay close, within about 2-3 m or so. It is possible to separate from your daemon but the process is indescribably painful. In HDM lore only witches go through with it. 
> 
> In general as a representation of your anima/animus your daemon will be the “opposite gender” to yours, though HDM mentions in passing that a rare minority of people have same-gender daemons (I always interpreted this as a nod to LGBT identities, though my specific headcanon is that this isn't a hard and fast rule). 
> 
> Part of what drew me to this AU was the idea of prejudice based on a daemon’s form. I liked the idea of Marty been slightly an “odd one out” as much as he likes to try to fit himself in. That's something that connects him to Rust. 
> 
> The presence of strawberry milkshakes is a nod to the fic “why some satellites” by hadaly. I will rec that fic till the day I die, so please check out that entire stunning series. 
> 
> Hope you're enjoying so far!


	2. flicker fusion threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flicker fusion threshold is the frequency at which light appears to be steady (rather than flickering) to a given eye. For compound eyes (fly eyes) it's quite different. 
> 
> Notes on the daemon lore to follow!

Between Cohle’s precision with the evidence and a relatively quiet stretch for serious murder, there isn’t much of a need for interrogation till just over two months in. Marty still hasn’t gotten a read on his partner beyond the terse words about his history, but can understand him professionally speaking.

And he’s damn good at that. The best, probably. 

Marty becomes sure of that when the Denoument Park Case drops a suspect in their lap for interrogation. As luck would have it, it’s the same morning that Derell pulls him aside before they’re about to go into the room together. 

“Marty, need to talk to you a minute. Alone.”

“Right, uh. Just go on without me,” he says to Cohle, but Cohle isn’t even looking back, all laser focus to the room. Yeah, sometimes it feels like he’s barely a partner to Cohle, though Cohle does talk his ideas through with Marty. Most of the time. 

Derell’s basset hound daemon, Jalaika, looks tense and shaken as they head over to the coffee nook. Derell pours them both a cup, and Marty doesn’t try to protest. He was out late last night again. He stirs sugar in while Derell unfolds a page in his pocket. Kare nudges her head towards the droopy eyed-dog, and Jalaika just murmurs to listen. 

“So, your partner, Taxman. Was looking at some high profile cases in Texas to compare to the maraju-ana ring we’re trying to bust up,” Derell’s lips curl, “And I found this.”

It’s a grainy printed newspaper article, front page splash unmistakably Cohle. Marty squints, trying to spot his tiny daemon. Behind him is a noble looking deer, beautiful antlers, that come up just to Cohle’s height. Does Cohle have his hand on its shoulder--

“Read the caption,” Derell takes a draught of the coffee.

_ Officer Cohle and his daemon, Marianais. The pair were central in determining how the thieves took advantage of gaps in the security system.  _

“Holy  _ shit _ .”

“Yeah. And he’s well-past settling age, there,” the date on the newspaper is 1988, so that would be pretty early on in Cohle’s career. 

Marty swallowed hard, “You ever heard of someone’s daemon changing after that? I mean, a big traumatic shock-like, or--”

“Man, I never heard of someone having a fucking  _ fly _ for a daemon.”

“I know, but...” the flare of curiosity, mixed up with compassion roils up in Marty’s throat again. What the hell happened that made Rust’s soul itself change shape? Was it something in the job?

“It’s probably none of our business anyhow,” Kare, ever the practical peace-keeper, pipes up, “All the same, thanks for letting us know, Derell.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Marty chews the inside of his cheek, glancing over to Rust’s sparse, empty desk and back to the image again. It’s an unwieldy daemon, sure. But even in the shitty grain of the picture, Rust seems more straight-backed, more of a ghost of a smile along his cheekbones. 

Derell clears his throat, “You got any idea --”

“Not a damn clue.”

“He’s your partner.”

“Man, he acts the same way to me as he does to all of you.”

“Like a fucking asshole,” Jalaika grumbles, shaking her floppy ears, and Marty has to laugh nervously. But there’s got to be a reason why.

But never mind figuring Rust out, Marty should be side-eyeing the daemons of real criminals. He sets down the cup of coffee. 

“I gotta go do my fucking job. Thanks again.”

“Yeah, good luck with that piece of work.”

Marty waves him off, not sure if he’s talking about Rust or Farbarino. They track down the stairs slowly. Kare is more than a little unsettled. The question of whether it was police work that did him in buzzes around Marty’s mind like a house fly of his own. The last thing he wants is to become like Cohle. 

“Hey, anything happened yet? Did Farbarino croak?” he passes Northcought who is watching on the monitor. 

“He hasn’t said anything. Cohle is just...watching.”

“Right. Uh...I’m sure Rust knows what he’s doing,” Marty reaches for the heavy handle of the door to stare the tight-shaved man with the curled lip in the eye. He has a mangy looking badger for a daemon, and Rust's is buzzing around his face, wings singing out. 

Rust turns to look at him slowly, and in that moment, the badger daemon snaps her jaw at the fly. Marty flinches, but the fly is far too quick and clever for that to catch her. 

“Well look Marty, already confirming what we already know,” Rust drawls, slow and chilling, while staring at Farbarino, “Got a fucking opportunist right here.”

“We sure as hell do,” Marty thinks it’s best to follow Rust’s lead here. What with the whole stare-him-down thing that he has building up. Marty was always just...okay at interrogation. Good cop with a bit of a rough side to him. 

Rust, well, hell. Whatever angle he’s going for, it’s nothing like a cop. It seems like he even moves like a criminal. He talks, walks like them in a way Marty has never seen before, the fly zipping around the room while the badger watches. 

“So let’s see if we got this right,” Rust flicks open the ledger that earned him the nickname ‘Taxman’, “You’re fixing motorcycles for a number of characters on the fringe who the police might be after. Y’know, maybe it’s good money, they make you feel like the big, tough mechanic that’s in the movies. Most of them are bigger than you, aren’t they, James?”

A muscle works in Fabarino’s jaw. I mean, no one could call him a small man, he wasn’t that tall either. 

“They treat you like you’re reliable-- and call you in at some weird-ass hours to fix things, but you always deliver. Heck, maybe they invite you to dinner sometimes, treat you like you’re part of the family. But there’s only one way  _ family _ goes with people like that, James.”

He hunkers down next to the badger daemon. Her legs are bunched up tight like she’s about to leap. He’s  _ real _ fucking close, which sends a shiver down Marty’s spine. 

He raises a finger to point at the daemon, a scant few inches from her throat, “She knows.”

Is that even legal? Would Cohle actually fucking  _ touch _ the man’s daemon? Marty can’t even imagine touching his wife’s daemon, the level of violation or intimacy necessary to cross that line. There might not be rules against it because no one would think to do it. The fly zips between the badger and Cohle, back and forth, back and forth. Marty can feel Kare holding her breath. Then Cohle starts talking again. 

“They ask you for a real favor. And pretty soon you’re stockpiling gasoline, and for what? You knew you’d help them toss it over a body, dump it in a shallow grave somewhere.”

“We know you didn’t kill him,” Marty feels the need to add that. Rust tilts his head from side to side and nods. The fly circles his head, almost mesmerizing. Marty licks his lips, his mouth strangely dry, “And we know from the prints you were there.”

“You know what I think. I think you dug that grave shallow on purpose,” Rust’s spine ripples as he stands, “It’s like buying your way out of the hell you’re in, which is fitting for a Catholic, but even the priests trading with St. Peter himself knew in their daemon’s soul that they wasn’t dealing with a saint. Nah. That was some kinda devil trading them damnation. And you knew it. You wanted everyone to know, so you did a shit job of it.”

“So?” it’s the first word Fabarino has said, as far as Marty can tell. And god, there’s fear in it. Marty would  _ not _ want to be in his shoes. He’s finding it hard to look at Rust, hard to look away just as well. 

“So you know the devil’s name, and you know what you bought don’t mean shit. But you’re not with Lucifer here, nah, this is some small-time bullshit. They’re all small, truth is.”

“But they said--” the badger has a deep, feminine voice and immediately the words die in her throat.

“What they said don’t mean shit, here. But you tell us what they told you. That means something for you. And something for your sins, don’t it?”

“Uhhm. Yup. Yup,” Fabarino just barely manages to get the words out. His lips twitch. 

“Tell us the names.”

The fucker does. Gives not one, but three and agrees to testify. It’s like nothing Marty has ever seen before, like Rust turned some kind of faucet and out came the information, the waterworks, everything. Before he can linger too long on it, Holloway taps them to go visit a suspicious suicide scene, and Cohle is out the door without a backwards glance. No, wait. 

“You coming, Marty?”

Marty keeps a hand in Kare’s fur as they drive out. He can't help but wonder if he had a fly daemon rather than a house cat if he might be able to do what Rust did in that room.

Did he want it enough for that? Hell no.

But still. There was something to respect in it. When they turn along the highway, he steals a glance to the light hitting Rust's glass-cut cheekbones, ever-present cigarette between his lips. His stomach flips with nervousness. Kare digs her claws in gently. He should say something. 

“Neat job in there with Farbarino. Never seen anything like that before.”

“Thanks,” Rust blinks and his daemon settles on the dash between them. Marty thinks she might be looking at him. It's hard to tell. 

“She help you with that?”

“I don’t know. It’s always just come naturally to me. You see what people want. To confess. That’s it,” he taps the cigarette on the dashboard, sparing a rare glance to the fly. She stares back. It’s hard for Marty to keep his eyes on the road, watching Rust and his daemon size each other up like strangers.  

“What’s her name, anywho?” it wasn’t an intimate question for a month of knowing each other by any means. Usually daemons, well. Introduced themselves. And Marty felt bad knowing that from a goddamn newspaper article. 

“I don’t know that either,” it’s only the particular steely gravel in Rust’s tobacco-fucked voice that stops Marty from telling him he’s full of shit. If a daemon can change form after it's settled, why wouldn't it change it's name too?

But without saying a damn thing?

“Jesus.”

All his politeness doesn’t stop him from saying that, though. Kare buries her head into his chest, and he can’t help the hand he drops to her fur. The loneliness of a silent daemon is unfathomable to him. But Cohle-- does he even mind? He'd have to. 

“Is that….uh--”

“Marty. I suggest you shut the fuck up.”

Marty’s lip curls. Cohle might be a bastard, but maybe, just maybe. He can understand why. 

But hell, he's not sure he wants to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it was clear from the explanation, but daemons can change form until adolesence, at which point the daemon takes on a form that is said to best describe the person's soul. It is exceedingly rare for a person's daemon to change after that. 
> 
> Again, this was explicit in the writing but touching someone else’s daemon is considered very violating or intimate. 
> 
> I chose a stag/deer for Rust's past daemon because I wanted something noble, a little unwieldy, and something to repeat on the antler imagery of the Lange case. I liked the idea of that haunting him a little throughout. 
> 
> Hope you're enjoying so far, thoughts are appreciated!


	3. pseudotrachea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pseudotrachea are sensors on the proboscis of a fly.

It isn't till he sees Rust's place that he finally gets over himself about the daemon to invite Rust to dinner. Now that goes worse and better than he expected. For whatever reason Maggie seems to warm up to him despite the silent fly on the wall, and his kids are polite enough to hush up about it.

He stays quiet for a day or so after before Maggie's words get to him.

Then when Rust spools out that sob story about losing his daughter to a freak accident, he understands. Not that Marty wants to go on assumptions, but hell. Losing a kid...he can see why that might change everything.

Marty hugs Audrey and Maisie extra close that morning. Then he stays out with Lisa that night to forget about it. Really, there was enough shit to worry about from work without feeling a stab of pity whenever he saw that fly buzzing without rest around his partner’s face.

That feeling burns out whenever Rust starts going off on those creepy as hell monologues. Such as today, on the drive to chase the Olivier lead, mumbling about he doesn’t believe man can love at all. Boy, did Marty want to prove that one wrong, Kare digging her claws in over it. From that, well. It almost seemed like the fly was some kind of bizarre hopeless match for him.

At the very least the words _buzz_ in his ears about bad men, about jigsaw pieces that he fits into, forces himself into, doesn't quite lock in with. And then there's Rust, who doesn't seem to fit anywhere, doesn't seem to want to.

But hell, after all that. They still got a job to do.

They pull up first to Henry Olivier's house, another relative of the missing girl. It's a peeling aluminum siding shithole, with a beat up picnic bench in the center of the dandelion-infested landscape. Rust tilts his neck back and forth, taking a glance to the sky.

“Don’t think he’ll be here. He’s a crab man, at this hour? Be out on the water.”

“Well, check here first, I say.”

“Right,” Rust gives him a look that’s slightly humoring and strides over to the door. Kare follows him eagerly, Marty trailing them both. She darts her eyes back and forth, curiosity getting the better of her. That’s the one thing about a cat that suits a detective.  

The sun is hot on the back of Marty’s cheap suit, but the clouds are gathering fast above them. He gets partway across the yard while Rust raps at the door. Marty’s gaze lingers on Rust, still thinking about what it means to be a bad man.

Then a sharp sensation cuts his breath to the quick.

Kare yowls and Marty feels the pain in the fibre of his soul.

“What the _hell--fuck_ ”

“Marty?”

He doesn’t glance at Rust, complete focus on his other half. She’s tumbled over in the overgrown flowerbed, limbs all splayed out in the dirt.

“Kare! What--”

“I'm fine, it's just a mousetrap, _shit_ ,” there are tears in her eyes. Marty scoops her up, his breathing a little panicked. The splintering wood digs into his arm as he lays her down on the picnic bench. The trap is wrapped around her paw, tightly enough that it could be broken. His hands are sweaty fumbling with the metal.

“Fuck, how do you get this thing off,” Marty can feel himself panicking a bit. Kare almost never got hurt, so this is a rare fucking agony. Rust sits down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Easy. Easy. You want me to look at it?”

“Fuck,” Marty manages to nod, and Rust slips his hand underneath the wood of the trap, careful to avoid touching Kare’s fur. He's deft with the metal, she and Marty exhale in unison as the trap lifts. He lets her paw down slowly, studying the indentations.

“You alright?” he holds Marty’s eyes, gaze surprisingly intense. For a moment, it’s hard to breathe all over again.

“Yeah, think so.”

“I’m sorry Marty, I should have been paying more attention-- just caught up looking,” she shifts slightly and hisses in pain.

“ _You_ alright?” Rust addresses Kare for perhaps the first time ever, and she blinks, wide eyes and whiskers twitching.

Rust's daemon lands on Kare's paw and both of them start slightly. Rust recovers first, standing up and heading for the car.

“First aid kit.”

“Yeah,” Marty manages. He watches Rust walking, heart in his throat. There’s a strange fire under his skin, and it’s far closer to whiskey-burn than it is to disgust.

Shit, it's not as if other daemons don't put a hand on Kare, she's always been friendly. But the fly-- she’s only ever landed on suspects’ daemons, dragging them in with tiny hands rubbing, eyes twitching. But she walks slowly over Kare’s fur, her strange nose-- mouth-- whatever that shit is that flies have, dragging over the individual strands.

“You okay, Kare?” he asks belatedly, and all she can do is nod and stare at Rust. The car isn’t far, but it’s still a few feet than Marty could part from Kare without it hurting like hell.That distracts him from Kare’s pain for a moment, wondering again how the _hell_ Rust does it. When he looks up, Rust has his jaw clenched tightly, sits down hard next to the both of them on the bench. Guilt flickers through Marty. There's no need for Rust to take that kinda pain on his account.

And so casually too, so carelessly.

“Can you move it?” Rust asks.

“Think so,” she winces and the paw moves up and down.

“She’s gonna be okay,” he almost phrases it as a question, eyeing the way Kare’s face screws up.

“Yes.”

All three of them freeze. God, that was-- he didn't even know the fly _could_ talk. Her voice is gravelly yet almost musical. Just that one syllable is enough to raise goosebumps on Marty's skin. And Rust-- he looks like someone walked over his grave.

Marty fights a sudden, strange urge to grab for Rust’s hand. Christ, what was happening?

He laughs nervously to fill the silence, “Well, uh. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

The fly says nothing. Marty didn't expect her too, and he suspects Rust didn't either. Rust seems to be struck dumb for the moment, his lips a tight bitten white. There’s a strange, desperate fire in them-- Marty can’t quite name it as fear, but doesn’t know what else to call it-- then in the blink of an eye, his gaze falls back to looking through the scene.

The fly casts away from Kare, and Rust stretches out a length of gauze in front of Kare. His hands are not entirely steady, making the bones and fine lines in them ripple like wind through a paperback book.

Kare lays her paw along the gauze without hesitation, letting Rust lift and loop it tight along the spot. Still meticulously avoiding touch. Marty’s thoughts split between _why is he doing this_ and _why am I_ letting _him_ and then the knot is tied and Rust is standing, eyes hooded and looking through Marty, the landscape, _everything_ _is nothing_ , the same old shit.

“Thanks,” Kare sets her paw down to stand, blinking with something like wonder. Rust nods, eyes cast downward.

“Yeah, uh. Thanks Rust.” Marty can’t quite look him in the eye, but he does watch him get up from the bench, knock on Olivier's house one last time. The sunlight casts shadows on the sharp angles of his body, his cheekbones. Marty remembers vividly the time he’d pinned Rust to the locker room, the heat of anger coursing through him-- was that anger?

“Marty, stop staring,” Kare hisses.

It takes him a moment to pull his gaze away. Rust waits at the door. No sign of Olivier.

“What are you thinking about?”

Marty was thinking, involuntarily, about Rust’s hands closing over his, and fuck it all, about tugging him closer, sucking the bullshit about how _men couldn’t love_ right from his lips and watching the nothingness drain from his eyes, replaced with that naked-flame fear of a moment before. He swallows hard.

“Just how Rust is a good partner, is all,” the lie is so goddamn natural he thinks Kare almost believes it.

He almost does, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daemons have physical form apart from their other halves and can get hurt/need to heal. The human will feel the pain of the daemon indirectly, as Marty has here. 
> 
> This brings us to the middle of the Lange Case, and I'm going to continue in the style of adding additional scenes to canon while providing context for when/how they occur. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, comments always welcome :)


	4. transparent chitin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone back and added these details to the other chapters, but for the chapter title: chitin is what fly wings are made of.

He can hold the lie for as long as they stay just partners, but the minute Rust drags him back to his place, tosses him that leather jacket, Marty glances to Kare and they both know they're a little fucked. Maybe more than a little.

They’re neck deep in the Lange case, Marty can’t go home to even see his fucking  _ kids _ , and yet for the first time in months more than half of what he thinks about is all the questions he has about Rust. What he thinks. Why he thinks that way. How he lives. Why there's such a sick beauty in it.

At the very least it’s a distraction from all that other shit.

He and Kare speak alarmingly little, conversation being a mine field and, well. Rust sure as hell doesn't talk to his daemon. So it feels rude to. But he catches Kare watching the fly almost as often as she catches him staring at Rust. He goes to work, leaves calls to home that are hung up immediately, and flips through Rust's books to avoid staring too long. They sleep, backs turned, on that bare mattress in the center of the room. Or rather, Marty sleeps.

Rust sits, most nights.

The day they have to go out, Marty is thinking in circles about the deer daemon,  _ Marianais, _ again. He can’t quite bring himself to match the fly with that name. He blinks at Rust's one-eyed mirror, wondering if that's for her as well. Well it’s not as if he can see his shirt and jeans in that. He’ll have to keep wondering if his outfit passes muster. Rust strides past him, still wearing the neat slacks he wore yesterday.

“How long till we--”

“Should at least wait till after dark. Relax.”

All the same, Marty’s anticipation seems to get to him, since he starts getting ready. Rust strips with the same lack of decorum he has in every situation. And it's not as if Marty can give him shit for it, since he sees him change in the precinct locker room almost every day.

He could have the decency to close the blinds, though.

Rust pulls the dirty wifebeater up his chest, showing three bullet scars and a fucking mess of others that Marty still remembers from the blur of that first night he stayed. Paired scars. He can see them clearly now. Some kind of movie-shit vampire bites. Except all down his chest. Jesus, what the hell happened, Rust?

He wants to ask, but instead tears his gaze away, a sudden heat at his neck. Shouldn't let this get out of hand. To distract himself, he pulls down the blinds belatedly. He needs to get laid, he needs to stop thinking that way, he needs to get it together and get Maggie back--

He needs to stop staring at Rust’s ass in those jeans. 

“Right,” Rust completes the persona by pulling on that jacket he'd let Marty wear that first night. He twists his head back, moving his body side to side in a way that’s seems deliberately tempting. Marty can’t tell if it’s Rust or his dick that’s fucking with him.

“Looks, uh.... great,” Marty swallows, gaze lingering a little too long. The jacket hugs Rust’s wiry arms in a way that looks criminally good. Kare purrs behind him in a way she hasn't since he left the house.

“Suits you.”

“Not sure that’s a compliment, motherfucker,” Rust rolls his neck back, the tendons sharp in the half-light. His daemon has settled on his shoulder for once, and his voice has a different edge to it. Makes Marty a little uneasy, pulse thrumming in his throat.

Feels like he’s looking at a stranger. Feels like his skin is too hot and he wants to skim the cool shadows of Rust's collarbones. But there's something far too natural about the way the persona hangs on Rust's bones. The details are all there, but it's more than that. The fly rubs her hands together.

“Look, uh….can I ask you something?”

“I need you in it tonight, Marty, if we nail this, we’ll get Ledoux. You just gotta be  _ on _ when I call.”

“I got the phone,” Marty has to swallow hard. Why does Rust always stand so close?

“Good, yeah. Keep focus,” he pats Marty on the back before sitting down hard on the lawn chair. He takes our a Sauer P226 from the metal box, starts loading the bullets. Passes it to Marty.

“They're not gonna let me go in armed. And if I try that’ll kill our chances right off,” he says by way of explanation. He turns over a plastic container in his hand, punching small holes in the lid with a knife on the countertop.

Marty eyes gun over in his hand. It ain't a cop’s weapon. Kare stalks near Rust's let, circling back to Marty.

“Right, you uh. Gonna need something to get their daemons with?”

“Don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

There were a few weapons of choice cops had for dealing with criminal daemons, minor tranquilizers, especially for big ones when things got dangerous. Of course, that only was a risk when things were close enough to be hand-to-hand combat, and if the daemons were known to be bigger than those of the officers. Some of the more unhinged were even known to attack humans.

Based on what Rust told him, he wouldn’t be surprised if these fuckers were capable of that.

Rust looks up from his work with the knife, leaning against the counter, “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Yeah, um...look, Derell. Showed me a newspaper article about you. About your uh...her,” he gestures at the fly.

“You left it on your desk, Marty,” Rust drawls, looking straight through him, “If this is some kind of guilty conscience about knowing that about me, I don't give a shit.”

“Look, I was just asking--”

“What the fuck are you asking, Marty,” it's not unfriendly, the way he says it, but the way he's staring right now isn't giving an inch.

“Know what, just forget it--”

“No if you're gonna ask something, do it.”

Marty opens his mouth, closes it tightly. Kare nips his leg. He opens it again, “I mean, the hell happened there?”

Rust grimaces with a pained satisfaction, “Knew you could do it, Marty.”

“Asshole,” Marty leans forward in the chair as Rust lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag. It's just like the first time, like pulling teeth getting him to start talking.

“What do you think daemons are?”

Oh god, but once he starts. This could go on a while.

“You know, it's….your companion. Folks round here would say it's half your soul.”

“A  _ soul _ \-- what the fuck does that word mean to you, that's a weasel word if I ever heard one.”

“Look, I know you're not much on the religion, but what else--”

“Haven’t you picked up a book in the last fifty years? Know anything about Ruskov fields, anything besides that fairy tale bullshit they spit at you from a pulpit?”

“You know I ...I've read things,” not much like the shit Rust reads, as Marty can attest from flipping through it. Rust leans forward, licks his lips distractingly.

“You ever read about Dust, or is that too heretical for your delicate sensibilities?”

“That's those European theo-logians, right?”

“Yeah. Real study of the phenomenon. Daemons are-- artifacts of the Ruskov field. They're manifestations of the great mistake of human consciousness, a physical trick that reinforces this illusion of the self. Especially of the static self,” Rust watches his own daemon with a strange mix of disdain and fascination. She flits back and forth between him and Marty, silent as ever.

“Daemons operate in the Ruskov field, sustained by Dust. The fact that consciousness is shared in this field only makes it more insidious-- we’re all part of this goddamn hivemind, man. That's how we drag each other down. That's the real fucking lie.”

“You mean….people connecting to each other,” he flicks his gaze up to the fly involuntarily, then back to Rust’s eyes. Rust hesitates, swallows, then almost rolls his eyes.

“Stop being so goddamn transparent, Marty. You could at least put in a little effort,” he closes up, lighting a cigarette. Fuck you too, Marty figures, not wholly knowing what he means by that.

Rust glares at the fly for a moment. Then Marty realizes he shouldn’t let him get away that easy.

“After all that, you ain't answering my question.”

“What do you think Marty? It’s been three months, m’sure you’ve got a story you tell yourself,” Rust resumes fiddling with the plastic box, checking the seal.

“Well,” Marty shifts back and forth, now thoroughly regretting asking, “I figured maybe it was your kid….I mean, hey, I was asking you, asshole.”

Rust looks up, his gaze searing, “The way my consciousness interacts with the world changed-- that’s all I meant, Marty. Didn’t happen overnight, though yeah, my daughter dying was a fucking shock, but that ain’t how you change. There’s no switch to flip. It’s erosion, man, one case, one drink, one fight, you can’t pin it on any of those things. It was months after when it happened, shit was going wrong in every fucking direction. Shot someone I shouldn’t have, heading towards divorce.”

“I was on probation for what I did when I woke up with her,” he jerks his head to the fly. The fly doesn’t even change course, entirely unconcerned by Rust speaking about her like she’s not even in the room, “Looked in the mirror and it wasn’t even a shock, not really. It fit. That fit with your story?”

“Yeah, um. I just thought-- she sits better with you. Like this,” Marty looks up, his lips twisting, and there’s a flicker in Rust’s eyes, part hunger, part agony, when he meets his eyes for a moment. The fly settles on his shoulder again, and that’s it, the moment’s gone. Kare brushes against Marty’s leg, but Marty doesn’t look away, doesn’t let up for once.

He’s never wanted to know anything this awful quite this much.

“That’s the thing about this job Marty. Any shit that happens to you, happens to you again, again. You turn it into something you can use. Texas CID saw something they could use,” he steps away to the window, one hand on his neck, the fly still with him.

“I did too.”

Marty swallows, the desire to put a hand on Rust’s shoulder welling up again. He hunkers down and pets Kare instead, but she’s looking to Rust’s hunched back as well. At his shoulder. Of course, it was a damn good disguise-- Rust’d been in the paper for his work in robbery, but no one would suspect he was the same person without that deer for a daemon.

I mean, hell, even he said he wasn’t, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ruskov field details are a mishmash of gathered HDM lore, and probably some of it conjecture on Rust's part. Yes, in HDM there is another elementary particle called 'Dust' that gathers in a unique way to conscious beings. I was relatively sure Rust would have a more cynical take on this making them special, and more just another piece of evidence that humans are an evolutionary abberation. 
> 
> In any case, shoutout to my lovely tartpants for a comment that helped make this chapter an even more interesting one than it already was <3
> 
> I would love any and all thoughts/comments on this chapter :)


	5. tapetum lucidum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tapetum lucidum is a structure in the eye of a cat that allows it to see in the dark. 
> 
> Content warning for an unusual type of psychological torture in this chapter. Nothing you could experience in reality, but it's probably a slightly upsetting read nonetheless.

The waiting is the worst of it. 

Marty has done stakeouts before, sure, but none this close to the other side of the law. He squints in the sharp yellow light, turns another page of Rust’s dog-eared copy of  _ Crime and Punishment _ . It’s no easier than he remembers it being. 

Just like the job. Getting harder every day. Kare pokes her head up from the window, still shaken from looking for Rust in the bar. One of those assholes had almost kicked her. Marty lays a hand on her back soothingly, and she presses her nose to his fingertip.

“It’ll be alright,” she says, almost to herself. 

“You think this is gonna cross any lines? I mean, I know we're on a tight deadline, but--” 

“Feel like we’re past the point already, don’t you think?”   


“Yeah,” Marty wishes she had said that before, but then, he hadn’t really made a lot of time to ask her, “Well we’ll make sure it don’t get any worse.”

He’s about to pick up the book again after a moment of silence when the phone rings and they both jump. Rust gives a rasp of an address on the other line, ignition,  _ drive _ . Marty can hear the sirens as he gets in to the suburbs building against the roar of blood in his ears. He squints in the darkness.

“See anything, Kare?” he slows his drive.

“Not yet-- wait-- back up….is that?”

Marty has to squint to get the shape of the movement, but the man on the left is certainly Rust. He’s half-dragging another man, who has a daemon too small for Marty to see, presumably. Marty’s hands slip on the gearshift as he backs up.   

“Go, go, go!” Rust slams the door shut, and Marty hits the gas. 

The man Rust shoves in to the back of the car looks to be a  _ tough _ motherfucker. All hard muscle and that god-awful beard, with a jacket just like Rust’s At the very least Rust gives him no quarter, holding him down and hitting him again, again. Marty can't help wondering if that's all that necessary, really. 

But Rust has it under control, right? 

Something is tossed into the seat next to him, but Marty is too focused on putting as much distance between him and those sirens as possible. It's a little exciting, a lot terrifying. Kare digs her claws into his lap.

“Ow,  _ fuck _ , Kare--”

“Marty--” her voice is high and terrified. It gives him pause, but is now really the time?

“Just hold on-- gotta get us out of here.”

“Don't lay up Marty, fucking go, fucking go,” Rust's eyes light in the rearview mirror, hollow and haunted. Marty pushes harder on the gas, but not too hard. Last thing they need is a speeding ticket. 

There’s no sign of struggle in the back, so Marty guesses Rust has him knocked out. He swallows, flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror again. 

“So who is he?”

“Goes by Ginger,” Rust takes out a cigarette. His eyes are too damn wide, but at least his hands don't shake any. Marty glances down to the passenger’s seat to see the plastic container Rust had been fumbling with earlier. He squints at the movement inside. Looks like a bug or, no. A scorpion. A chill crawls down Marty’s spine. 

“Jesus, Rust, is that--?”

“Just fucking drive, motherfucker.”

Marty snaps his eyes to the road, brain moving a mile a minute. Did Rust have to handle that fucker’s daemon to string him along? He’d obviously planned to this -- maybe he figured a way to snare him without touching the scorpion. He had to, right? 

Rust has it under control. 

Kare hops out of the driver's seat as soon as Marty opens the door. The night is sharply cold, for once, and just as dark. Marty is halfway through wondering if Rust needs a hand, when Rust comes out with the man-- Ginger, slung over his shoulder. 

“Get the box.”

Marty gets the box. The scorpion daemon doesn't stir inside. Kare hisses, and Rust snatches it from his hand without a word. 

Marty wants to protest, but he saw the look in Rust's eyes. It wouldn't do a lick of good. 

When they get inside, Rust gets out a roll of duct tape and loops it around Ginger’s legs, gets his arms behind his back. Even while he's trussing Ginger up, Rust keeps the daemon out of arm’s reach of his other half. Marty can see its stinger tail starting to twitch. Marty keeps his back to the wall, outside of the kitchen tile. Ginger is sprawled against the countertop on the floor, boots just extending on to the white carpet to leave an ugly print.

Rust slaps Ginger lightly, and on the back of his hand is an angry pair of marks, like a vampire bite.

Oh Jesus Christ.

“Wake up motherfucker,” Rust slaps him again harder, and Ginger blinks his eyes.

“You. You-- fuck you,” Ginger spits in his face. 

“S’just as well you’re going to act like a dog, you’re gonna die like one,” Rust lays a length of tape over his mouth. The scorpion is going crazy in the box now, trying to scratch itself out. Kare mewls pitifully. Rust doesn’t take any notice, and it takes Marty a second to as well. He leans down and shushes her, eyes on Rust. 

“You know what’s gonna happen if I bring you in,” Rust hunkers down, tilting his face towards Ginger. So damn close, “Iron Crusaders have got people on the inside, and they’ll all know that the ‘91 disaster was all on you. And the ‘93. Because that was all on me, brother. You thought I was yours you thought. Fucking. Wrong.”

Marty isn’t sure how to parse the slight waver in Rust’s voice at the end of those words. The scorpion stills for a moment, but Ginger’s gaze is a stone wall. He doesn’t even fucking blink. Kare hisses slightly behind Marty, and yeah, Marty doesn’t like the fucker one damn bit either. 

Especially that damn close to Rust. The fly is practically brushing Ginger’s stringy hair zooming back and forth, and Rust isn’t giving an inch staring him down, barely half a foot between them. Just as Marty feels like he should step in, Rust tilts his head and speaks. 

“But we need something from you. Then maybe we can talk out a trade. Reggie. LeDoux. You know him? Shake or nod, I don’t want to hear your fucking voice.”

Ginger doesn’t move, his eyes spelling out a clear  _ fuck off _ to Rust. The fly is buzzing near his face, but he doesn’t look at it. He does glance down to his daemon, and Rust’s eyes flash, hollow as a hungry ghost.

“I’m not gonna play games with you, brother. You wanna know what it’ll be like? You always acted like you knew.”

Rust stands up and takes the plastic container in hand. The fly hovers by Ginger’s face, and the scorpion starts scratching back and forth, her voice muffled by the plastic. Rust turns his back.

Oh Jesus, fuck no. 

Rust takes the first steps quickly, and Marty can see the way Ginger’s brow furrows. The fly waits with him, but Rust doesn’t show any signs of feeling the distance. Another step. And another. 

Ginger makes a pained sound behind the tape. Rust stops, and the fly immediately zips across the room to join Rust. Marty can feel Kare relaxing beside him. Marty doesn’t relax yet. 

“They’d cut the stinger off too,” Rust takes another step, tilts his head towards Marty without looking at him. In the half-light Marty can see how dead his eyes are. 

How far is he gonna take this? 

Ginger is almost screaming behind the tape now, but that’s nothing,  _ nothing _ compared to the agony of his daemon, her calls clear through the plastic like dull knives dragging through glass. 

Rust takes another step.

“Rust, that’s enough,” Marty doesn’t say it loud enough, it’s drowned out by the scorpion’s screaming.   
And another.

Marty crosses the floor, Kare tensed to pounce behind him.The fly daemon gets between them, hovering in the bare half-foot between their eyes. And Rust just holds the trapped daemon screaming in his hands, the scorpion bite livid and raw in the half-light. 

Marty puts his hand on Rust’s shoulders without even thinking about it, almost shakes him. 

“Rust.”

Rust looks up to meet his eyes, and there’s a splice of something fucking terrifying in them before he turns away, slides the box a few feet down the floor. It isn’t nearly close enough, but Ginger’s body goes limp from the effort, and the screaming stops. Marty is afraid to let go of Rust, afraid to hold on to him, but Kare skitters towards the box, pushes it with her face towards Ginger, and he has to follow her. 

Marty picks up the box, staring down at the red-and-purple mess of Ginger’s tear-streaked face. There’s hatred in it, the kind that comes from fear. Marty glances back to Rust and feels the echo of that fear thrill through him. 

“Take the tape off, Marty. He’ll talk.”

Marty sets the box down out of arm’s reach, and tears the tape off his mouth quick. The pain doesn’t even register with Ginger, he’d guess. Ginger spits again, this time looking like he wants to vomit. 

“DeWall. De Wall fucking works with LeDoux. He’ll meet with me if I ask. Fuck. Fuck. Let me see her, let me see her, I swear I won’t--”

“Shut up,” Marty can hear the desperation in Ginger’s voice and he doesn’t give a damn. Because that’s a bad man if he  _ ever _ saw one. That’s it, that’s where he draws the line. He glances up to Rust, asking what to do next.

“No.” 

And it’s Kare, to his surprise, that pushes the box a few inches further out of reach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully all the implications were clear in this chapter. I guess you were probably expecting partner range to come up again in this way -- or maybe this was a surprise? Anyways let me know in comments :))


	6. pinnae

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pinnae are the outer part of the ears. They are exceptionally sensitive in cats.

Marty doesn't notice he's digging his nails into his palms until Rust shoves Ginger into the closet. Luckily they're not long enough to draw blood. Rust looks fucked himself when he shuts the door, exhaling once and letting his spine curl into a hunch.  

“That was way fucking--” the protest dies in Marty’s throat when he sees Rust's face. Rust walks past him to the kitchen, takes out a faded bottle of scotch.

They got what they wanted, yeah. But at what cost?

Kare already starts crossing the floor towards Rust. Marty follows. Rust offers him the bottle when he gets in to the kitchen. It tastes metallic, almost like that aluminum and ash shit Rust is always going on about. Marty leans heavily against the counter, passing the bottle back to Rust.  Kare nips his leg. Marty raises his eyes, watches Rust take another hard swig.

Marty raises a hand to clumsily settle on Rust’s shoulder before he registers the motion.

“I'm fine, Marty,” Rust looks anything but. It's almost worse than the haunted look he had with that pathetic bunch of flowers on Marty's doorstep.

God, that seems like years ago now.

“Yeah, I know,” Marty squeezes his shoulder gently, not wanting to let go just yet. Then, like a car wreck in slow motion, Rust bends forward to rest his head on Marty's shoulder. Marty's breath catches in his throat. He can hear the too-quick thrum of Rust's pulse next to his ear. He wants to draw Rust closer, hold him till his heart calms down but he's afraid to move.

Rust raises his free hand to his neck. Marty catches the small movements of the fly on his shoulder. He turns his head just slightly, slips his hand to Rust’s shoulder blade. Marty feels Rust’s pulse jump before he moves away, a chill in his wake. He sets the bottle down hard on the counter, walks into the main room and snaps open a lawn chair. He doesn’t bother with the lights, the kitchen light casting over into the room.

Marty gets a chair out, fumbling with the frayed plastic and swearing as it catches his finger. In his peripheral vision he watches Rust light a cigarette with just-- slightly trembling hands.

“Rust,” he set the chair down too damn close. Their knees are almost touching, though Rust’s arms are wound tightly close to his body.  Marty leans forward in spite of himself, hands gripping his knees.

“Talk to me.”

“What do you want me to--” the words die out as a mumble in Rust's throat. Marty drops his head.

He wants Rust to tell him what the hell happened between him and Ginger, what made him turn a bond into a torture device. What he's thinking right now. That's such bullshit, isn't it?

But Rust isn't telling him to fuck off either.

The distance between them is not more than a few inches, but Marty has no damn clue how to bridge it. He tightens his fingers on his knees. Kare is next to Rust's chair, staring at him with undisguised concern. Rust just sucks the cigarette right down to his cheekbones. The fly is now hovering right in front of his face but he just… looks right through her.

In the space of breath between Rust’s next drag, the unbelievable happens.

The sensation is electric at first, though the touch itself is so light it barely registers on Marty's skin. He can see the shock ripple through Rust's back just as he realizes what happens.

Rust's daemon is sitting on his hand.

Marty flicks his eyes to Kare's panicked glance, and then, ever one to follow another's lead, she hops her paws to the edge of the chair and tentatively steps on to Rust's lap.

Oh god.

Christ. If this wasn't the strangest, most terrifying feeling he'd ever had in his life. Neither of them look at each other, but Marty can  _ feel _ Rust's awareness of him in the feather-light footsteps along the veins of his hand. He can feel the exact nature of Rust's tension through Kare’s paws, the pain almost radiating off of Rust's hand slung loosely over the plastic. Kare licks it, and the taste of cheap tobacco suddenly blossoms on his tongue.

That desire to  _ know  _ him, curiosity and something fierce and warm he’s only had an echo of before thrills through him. It intesifies when he realizes Rust can probably sense it to, just as he can sense the strange  _ hunger _ in the fly’s probing.

Rust's hand settles in Kare's fur. Marty breathes in, still not daring to meet Rust's eyes. He studies an empty corner of the room where the shadow gathers. It occurs to him that this feeling is far less disgusting than he expected, though just as scary.

There's beauty and terror in it.

He looks down at the fly. She pauses. Her eyes glitter at him. Then in unison, Marty feels the fly lift off his hand, Rust's hand lift off Kare's back. She tumbles off of his lap, flitting to curl her body around Marty's leg. The fly doesn't settle on Rust, just on the other arm of the seat.

Rust finishes his cigarette. Marty waits.

“Okay,” is all Rust finally says.

“Yeah,” is all Marty can manage in return. They fold up the chairs, still not looking at each other. The desire to touch Rust has settled in to the marrow of Marty's bones, but someone that seems cheap. After how close they just were -- god.

“Should get some sleep. Tomorrow we finish this,” there's more steel in Rust's voice, at least. And when he finally looks at Rust, at least some life has started to flicker in his eyes. Maybe something like fear too. Marty can't place it.

"Yeah.”

Sleeping on the same mattress felt too damn close the first night. Now it doesn't feel like enough. Marty has to force himself to stay back to Rust, but Kare nips him and he knows not to push.

For both of their sakes, really.

Rust doesn't sleep, of course. But from the way he curls and lies down, his daemon settled on the top of his head…

Marty is pretty sure he did some dreaming, at least.

Pretty sure they both did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I guess this sort of lives up to the "under resolved emotional tension" tag, eh?
> 
> I digress, I can't leave these two alone, so I will write a sequel story to this. But this is the story I had to tell for now. I hope you liked it, and comments and concrit would be extremely valued :) thanks for stopping by!


End file.
